Part of the
Museo Nazionale Romano which is made out of five different museums in five
different locations. The other four are Palazzo Massimo, Palazzo
Altemps, Museo delle Terme and Crypta
Balbi
Ground Floor - Palatine Hill from Origins to the Republican Period
ROOM I
The prehistory of the hill (from 100,000 years
ago to the end of the second millennium BC). From the Middle Paleolithic to the
Bronze Age with stable settlements from 1200 BC
ROOMS II -
III
The
early history of the hill (X/VII century BC), huts of the Iron Age and burials
ROOM IV
The Archaic and Republican period (VI/I century
BC). Cultural complexes and private houses
First Floor - Palatine Hill in the Imperial Period
ROOM V
Augustan Age (27 BC/14). The sanctuary of
Apollo of Actium and decorative theme in celebration of the Principality
“Fragment
of the Face of Late Archaic statue of Athena”
“Fragment of the Palatine Palladium” original Greek of the sixth century
BC
The
Palladium was a statue that, according to the beliefs of antiquity, was capable
of defending an entire city. The most famous was kept at Troy, and in fact the
city was destroyed when Ulysses and Diomedes succeeded in stealing it
According
to Virgil, Ulysses and Diomedes did not steal the Palladium, but it was Aeneas
who brought it with him to Italy and there it stayed only to be eventually kept
in the Temple of Vesta
“Three herms of canephorae in black ancient marble” from the porch of the Temple of
Apollo
The
canephorae were maidens who carried sacred objects of worship in baskets held
deftly balanced on their heads
“Campana Slab” 36/28 BC architectural terracottas from the
Temple of Apollo
Their name
recalls that of the Marquis Giampietro Campana who, in the first half of 1800s,
had gathered a rich collection of these particular kind of terracottas
ROOM VI
Age of Nero (54/68) - The Domus Transitoria
(temporary house) and new decorative conception
“Inlaid marble panels” in opus sectile from the
Domus Transitoria
Opus
sectile is one of
the more refined and prestigious techniques of marble ornamentation, both for
the marbles used often very valuable and for implementation difficulties
Marble is
cut into very thin sheets known as crustae and shaped with great
precision, using the most different qualities of marble to obtain the desired
color effects
ROOM VII
From the Julio-Claudian emperors to the
Tetrarchy (284/312). Official portraiture and decoration of the Palace
“In the
portraits of Nero, best known from coins emissions, it seems possible to
distinguish three stylistically different periods due to his different
political behavior. In the portrait of the Palatine, chronologically be placed
in the middle years of the reign, the realism of some facial features is
tempered by the apparent softness of the marble, the search for effects of
light and pathos. This style heralds the stage of absolute rule of the emperor
in which we witness, at the level of artistic language, the final affirmation
of the Baroque and pictorial trend of the Hellenistic tradition, already in
embryo in the figurative culture of Claudius” (Simona Fortunelli)
“Two pieces of the floor in opus sectile (inlaid
marble)” of
the Neronian period from the Domus Tiberiana
“He ruled
with wisdom and righteousness, animated by paternal solicitude for the welfare
of all. He eased the tax system, he was generous with donations, he founded
charities, including one in favor of orphan girls. Respectful of official
religion, however, he was not too intransigent toward Christians and Jews. To
his wife Faustina he erected a temple on the Via Sacra. Under his reign raids by
Mauri in Africa and Brigantes in Britain were easily tackled: here it was
established the famous 'Antonine Wall'“ (Enciclopedia Treccani)
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